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Yeah I knew about GoF research but I didn't know they planned on doing it on MERS. Another troubling thing was that they basically ignored the moratorium so eve

Yeah I knew about GoF research but I didn't know they planned on doing it on MERS. Another troubling thing was that they basically ignored the moratorium so even if measures were taken to stop GoF... they were just ignored by using a foreign lab as a loophole? To me it's mind-boggling that you could get arrested and fined for violating covid-related restrictions but people who did much much much more potentially dangerous stuff are not only getting away with it but also kept getting financed by the government. Even if covid turns out to not originate from a lab, just the insane potential risks that came from the blatant violations of the GoF moratorium should have been enough to land people in trouble. Especially since us commoners were punished based on the possibility that we could transmit the virus, whether we were infected or completely virus free didn't matter.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Yes, this is where the whole lab leak "conspiracy" came from. The lab was doing GoF research with bat and pangolin Coronaviruses exploring if the spike protein can be modified to enter through the human ACE2 receptor. There are a number of papers from Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli on the topic with research done at the Wuhan lab.
ryanobjc 5y ago
I think your 'commoners' framing... is not helpful here. You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned - The ban was NIH funding GoF - The ban was lifted in 2017 anyways - Is this risky? The ban on funding it doesn't mean it's risky, as per se. - The potential pie in the eye risk are infinite, but what are the realistic risks? That really depends on the technical details of how the research is done, and where it's done. - Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. All of this research came out of the desire not to be caught flat footed by the next version of SARS or MERS. Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines "made in months" that have stood the test of efficacy and safety? Months if you ignore the years of research behind it. Is this particular thing excessively dangerous or not? I'm not 100% sure. Most of the "this is unacceptable" seems to be coming from people who seem to have a visceral hatred of Dr Fauci and who as head of the NIH was indirectly responsible for this funding. But I don't find that a reasonable line of reasoning. One thing I know, is every scientist I know is not paid a boat load, and care deeply about what they are doing and why. Perhaps GoF is too 'dangerous', but maybe we should also hear about how it can be made safe, how does it compare in hazardousness to other common things that are deemed 'safe' and what the benefits are.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Yep - we kept having near-misses with prior coronaviruses, so understandably, scientists were spending a ton of energy trying to figure out what makes them so pathogenic and how the animal-human jumps occur. Considering the fact that SARS and MERS both came from zoonotic origin (and IMO, Sarscov2 did as well) - we should really be spending our energy on the best research methods to prevent another pandemic, whether that's GoF research or something else.
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
    - fn-mote 5y ago
      > Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        That's true, but whether the understanding is worth the risk is questionable. It seems likely that we've managed to cause rather than prevent a pandemic with this particular research.
      - mattcwilson 5y ago
        I’m not sure how realistic your example is. Prior to discovering handwashing, were scientists doing things they knew had the potential to get literally everyone morbidly sick, just to try figuring out how it worked?
TeeMassive 5y ago
The conspiracy theory (at this point, is it even one?) is that they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group, like SARS2 did to some extent, or at least being a able to have the vaccine before everyone else, which also happened to some extent. Because otherwise there are no valid reasons to create this kind of pathogens in labs; the chance the bugs created there will be similar to the naturally occurring ones are basically none and even less so that the vaccines or treatment will be or remain efficient treatment.
- rcpt 5y ago
  > they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group Ok that is totally made up. There are plenty of reasons that researchers make dangerous pathogens that have nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. Some of these methods even get published despite the risks that the knowledge presents https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875
  - mattcwilson 5y ago
    Can you explain what you mean by “totally made up?” Are you saying literally no one at all wants this? Just that there are also other reasons to do the research? Something else?
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      I think that the covid pandemic is highly unlikely to be the result of such research. It's much more likely to be the result of research into how to prevent future pandemics and treat coronaviruses.
      - mattcwilson 5y ago
        Ok, I think that’s reasonable. At the level of individual research directors, I agree that probably the large majority of them have good intentions. My concern is that there aren’t just altruistic research directors. There are funders. There are politicians. There are militaries. There are covert agents. And I get really concerned how easy it is for actors with less savory, noble intentions to coopt naive researchers into participating in a larger agenda. It’s super convenient for everyone to be able to have the plucky, innocent, earnest research director come out with shining optimism about the potential. And it’s a convenient reason not to totally slam the brakes on research that, for better or worse, may lead (may have led) to global pandemic.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

Yes, this is where the whole lab leak "conspiracy" came from. The lab was doing GoF research with bat and pangolin Coronaviruses exploring if the spike protein can be modified to enter through the human ACE2 receptor. There are a number of papers from Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli on the topic with research done at the Wuhan lab.

ryanobjc 5y ago

I think your 'commoners' framing... is not helpful here. You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned - The ban was NIH funding GoF - The ban was lifted in 2017 anyways - Is this risky? The ban on funding it doesn't mean it's risky, as per se. - The potential pie in the eye risk are infinite, but what are the realistic risks? That really depends on the technical details of how the research is done, and where it's done. - Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more. All of this research came out of the desire not to be caught flat footed by the next version of SARS or MERS. Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines "made in months" that have stood the test of efficacy and safety? Months if you ignore the years of research behind it. Is this particular thing excessively dangerous or not? I'm not 100% sure. Most of the "this is unacceptable" seems to be coming from people who seem to have a visceral hatred of Dr Fauci and who as head of the NIH was indirectly responsible for this funding. But I don't find that a reasonable line of reasoning. One thing I know, is every scientist I know is not paid a boat load, and care deeply about what they are doing and why. Perhaps GoF is too 'dangerous', but maybe we should also hear about how it can be made safe, how does it compare in hazardousness to other common things that are deemed 'safe' and what the benefits are.

mikeyouse 5y ago
Yep - we kept having near-misses with prior coronaviruses, so understandably, scientists were spending a ton of energy trying to figure out what makes them so pathogenic and how the animal-human jumps occur. Considering the fact that SARS and MERS both came from zoonotic origin (and IMO, Sarscov2 did as well) - we should really be spending our energy on the best research methods to prevent another pandemic, whether that's GoF research or something else.
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
  - fn-mote 5y ago
    > Even if "we" figure out how the animal-jump can occur, it's not like "we" can stop it or even predict it. The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me. For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      That's true, but whether the understanding is worth the risk is questionable. It seems likely that we've managed to cause rather than prevent a pandemic with this particular research.
    - mattcwilson 5y ago
      I’m not sure how realistic your example is. Prior to discovering handwashing, were scientists doing things they knew had the potential to get literally everyone morbidly sick, just to try figuring out how it worked?

TeeMassive 5y ago

The conspiracy theory (at this point, is it even one?) is that they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group, like SARS2 did to some extent, or at least being a able to have the vaccine before everyone else, which also happened to some extent. Because otherwise there are no valid reasons to create this kind of pathogens in labs; the chance the bugs created there will be similar to the naturally occurring ones are basically none and even less so that the vaccines or treatment will be or remain efficient treatment.

rcpt 5y ago
> they want to create a virus that targets only certain ethnic group Ok that is totally made up. There are plenty of reasons that researchers make dangerous pathogens that have nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. Some of these methods even get published despite the risks that the knowledge presents https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875
- mattcwilson 5y ago
  Can you explain what you mean by “totally made up?” Are you saying literally no one at all wants this? Just that there are also other reasons to do the research? Something else?
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    I think that the covid pandemic is highly unlikely to be the result of such research. It's much more likely to be the result of research into how to prevent future pandemics and treat coronaviruses.
    - mattcwilson 5y ago
      Ok, I think that’s reasonable. At the level of individual research directors, I agree that probably the large majority of them have good intentions. My concern is that there aren’t just altruistic research directors. There are funders. There are politicians. There are militaries. There are covert agents. And I get really concerned how easy it is for actors with less savory, noble intentions to coopt naive researchers into participating in a larger agenda. It’s super convenient for everyone to be able to have the plucky, innocent, earnest research director come out with shining optimism about the potential. And it’s a convenient reason not to totally slam the brakes on research that, for better or worse, may lead (may have led) to global pandemic.